As a class, we went to see Noah Scalin's introduction of his installation of Maggie Lena Walker at the VCU Business School. Scalin is the school's first artist-in-residence, and their partnership formed in hopes of driving business through creativity. At the "grand reveal" of the installation, Scalin mentioned his motivation for subject choice. Maggie Walker was a successful businesswoman of color, and the first woman to open a bank. She represents the diverse array of students at VCU, he said.

I think the work is really cool. I'm amazed by things like this that only look right from a certain perspective - how do you even think about how to do that? It's very, very impressive. Not only the perspective, but also the color choice is challenging. Using just pieces of fabric, he had to compose a work with shading that works and looks right, and he did. Looks very difficult to me.

I don't think my work will be affected by this at all, though. While I find it interesting and impressive, I can't see myself doing anything similar in the future. I'm interested in illustration, and not very interested in color, so a sculpture (installation? sculpture?) like this doesn't apply much to my work, from my view.

I am a bit confused on the idea of an "artist in residence." What does that really mean? I assume just an artist that lives at the school and in turn makes art for them. But, then, what is the real advantage to the school? I understand the idea of merging creativity and business, but don't understand the choice to have an artist-in-residence to apply this concept.